“Yes. No. I don’t know. John is like all the other men in my family. Not very emotional, a bit self-absorbed. I always knew he could be an asshole but I figured that I felt that because he was my brother. I see him with the kids and he is a great father. I always saw, I think, that Jane wanted more. She wanted to be out there, not trapped at home without passion.
“It makes me sad. It makes me think of my mother too. And who knows what’s going on with Rosemary. I don’t really know what goes on in my parents’ marriage, but I never see affection and passion. My dad looks more longingly at a steak than he does at my mother.”
I suppressed a smile. It made me think of my own parents.
Another quiet moment. She gulped.
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid that that is my fate too. That I’ll end up just like them.”
She looked at me, her eyes wide and vulnerable.
“I don’t think you will.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m crazy about you. And I always will be.”
I took out the box with the ring, put it on the table, and slid it over to her. The City below seemed to pause. She looked at the box.
“What is this?”
“Why don’t you open it?”
I could see her hands trembling slightly as she took the box. She snapped it open and stared.
“Will you marry me?”
I don’t think that the silence lasted very long, maybe a matter of seconds. To me, though, it seemed like an eternity. I wanted to throw up.
We had never really talked about marriage. We talked vaguely of the kind of life we each wanted to live, the number of children we each saw ourselves with (two for me, more for her). We talked about our values in a way that both knew was probing and exploring to check compatibility. I was wondering if I had acted too impulsively. Before meeting her, though, I never would have acted like this, and I loved this about her and her effect on me.
“Oh Steven. I don’t know what to say.”
“If I can be trite, say yes.”
“Why, though? Why would you want to marry me?”
“What do you mean? You know I love you.”
“I do. And I love you. But our lives together? How do you know it would work?”
“Honestly, I don’t. But ever since I met you I thought you were extraordinary. You are beautiful and sexy. You are funny and sassy. You have a spark and spunk that lights up my life. You have made me feel things that I have never felt; you make me want to be a better man, for you. Come on, haven’t I become less of an asshole over these past few months?”
She laughed and nodded. It lifted the mood a little.
“Seriously, I have never known with any other woman. But with you I really do know and I have known for a while. I can’t imagine being without you but I can do nothing other than imagine being with you.”
She paused again.
“How would we live?”
“However you want. I start work over the summer and we should have enough money to live well, more or less wherever we want. I want to be with you. To have children with you and raise a family, one that is close and warm and different from what I grew up with. I want to make you happy.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, like yes?”
“Yes. I will marry you.”
I took her hand and the box. I took the ring out and put it on her finger. Catching the candlelight and yellow-ish ambient lighting the diamond flashed. We both looked at the ring on her finger and then at each other.
We leaned over the table, which people in the Rainbow Room don’t do, and kissed each other deeply. Some of the other patrons were watching us. I saw one couple smile while another scowled at our lack of decorum. The City below came back to life. Our server had seen the proposal unfold and, unsolicited, he brought us two glasses of Champagne.
“This is on the house. Congratulations.” A few couples nearby who overheard lightly clapped. We both blushed.
“To us,” I said, raising my glass.
“Forever.”
Chapter 16
A few weeks later I took Sally to meet my parents for the first time. We went to their house in Westchester for Sunday brunch. My younger sister, who had also never met Sally, was also there. Their house was a few miles from the train station, set back off a small road without sidewalks, so I rented a Zipcar to get us there. In contrast to Sally’s house, it was spacious and airy with an open floor plan. My mother had set the dining room table for the five of us. She was a surprisingly good cook and despite her always being busy during the week she occasionally liked to make an elaborate meal on the weekends. I had told them over the phone that we were engaged and I’m sure that they wanted to make a good impression.
My mother is tall and thin with straight brown hair. When we arrived she was wearing a simple but elegant blue dress and an understated gold chain. She opened the door for us and smiled broadly when she met Sally.
“It is so nice to finally meet you,” she said, as she clasped her hands and gave her a peck on each cheek. “Steven has told me so much about you.”
That statement puzzled me, because actually I had told her quite little. Maybe in my relatively taciturn family that counted for a lot. Or maybe the fact that I told her anything at all about a girl — which I had never done — gave her that idea.
“It’s a really pleasure, Mrs. Winthrop.” My mother nodded almost imperceptibly, approving of the deference.
“Come in, let me take your coats. Would you like a drink?”
My mother, I knew, meant a mimosa or bloody Mary. Sally took it differently.
“Sure, a coffee would be great.”
A slight hiccup, but everyone seemed to survive that encounter.
My mother brought us all coffee. As we were telling her about the uneventful trip up my father entered. He was also tall and imposing and had the best posture of any man I had ever known. He was a contrast to John (Sr.) Donovan. Donovan was stocky, informal, and talkative (at least about some topics). My father was always reserved and formal. He was wearing a long sleeve, plaid button-down shirt, khakis and loafers and was carrying a bloody Mary, a small regular indulgence of his on Sunday mornings. Sally rose from the couch as he approached and he held out his hand to shake hers.
We chit chatted for a while. My parents, of course, wanted to know more about Sally and her family but they were too polite to ask anything more than the most trivial questions. Soon my sixteen-year-old sister Joy bounded down the stairs. She was in jeans and a light cotton pink sweater that hugged her developing chest. Joy was pretty and knew it. She was popular among the boys and stood just out of reach of the boys, teasing them in the way that those high school girls did to me. With a big smile that could have been fake she introduced herself to Sally. Then we all went in to eat.
The conversation was subdued and polite. We started with current events but Sally was quiet and Joy was clearly bored. Joy really wanted to talk about the lacrosse season, which just started for her. Sally smiled indulgently but nobody else was much interested and eventually my mother stopped her. Then she began to ease into the topic was on all of our minds (except for Joy’s).
“So Sally, how did Steven propose?”
She told her the story and showed her the ring. She and Joy complimented it. My father shot me a glance, like, “How did you afford that thing? A bit much, isn’t it?”